


Here Comes Santa Claus

by stelliferous_sky



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, British James Griffin, F/M, First Meetings, Fluff, It's November ya'll Time for Christmas, Leiffin, Minor Verazavi, Not Beta Read, Socially awkward Leifsdottir, The Voltron gang is there but minor, background klance, griffinsdottir
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-17
Updated: 2018-11-17
Packaged: 2019-08-24 19:20:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16646156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stelliferous_sky/pseuds/stelliferous_sky
Summary: Social hermit Ina gets dragged out to a Christmas festival and runs into a charity Santa Claus.And promptly tears his beard off.





	Here Comes Santa Claus

**Author's Note:**

> This is written for Day 4 of Leiffin Week for the prompt 'First Meeting'. 
> 
> I don't want to label Ina as autistic in this fic because I feel like it's not accurate. She just really doesn't like having to interact with strangers.

  See, Ina had absolutely no intention of going to the on-campus Christmas festival they held every year before everyone departed for the holidays. She went for freshman year and decided that once was enough. Plus, she had two assignments due after winter break anyway and computer programs didn’t write themselves.

  But Nadia, her roommate and self-proclaimed best friend, had other ideas. She thought it was atrocious to miss out on the biggest campus event of the year and apparently Ina lacked in Christmas spirit.

  To Nadia ‘no’ meant ‘yes’ so Ina found herself shuffling along snow-covered streets in four layers of sweaters, two layers of thick pants, a ridiculously yellow beanie, mittens and a scarf wrapped so many times around her neck that it covered half her face. Yeah, she really hated the cold. Everything was miserable and wet and her nose was about to fall off.

  Nadia bumped her shoulder with a huge grin. “Oh, come on, Leif! We’re doing you a favour. You can’t stay holed up all the time.”

  “Theoretically, I can.”

  Ara peeked around her older sister. “Yeah but I only visit once a year. You wouldn’t leave me alone with Nadia, would you?”

  Ina grumbled because she had a point. When Ara came before Christmas last year, the two sisters somehow managed to get kicked out of the festival grounds and they didn’t talk for weeks after that. Ina was very disappointed that Nadia, a fully grown adult, couldn’t work things out with an eight-year-old in a mature and responsible way, especially since the two were usually inseparable. Usually.

  “I wish Ryan was here,” she muttered.

  Ryan was the other sane one of their trio. But alas, he and the rest of the photography club were out taking pictures for the school magazine and he would only meet them at the concert later that night.

  So the walk along the campus began. Everything was covered in tinsel and lights with Christmas trees at every corner. Giant plastic candy canes, elves and reindeer lit up the streets. Food stalls were crowded with people in festive colours and other stalls sold snow globes, trinkets, scarves and other various things made by students. Children flocked around small carousels and game booths that displayed small stuffed toys.

  Carollers dressed as elves wander between the steady river of people, singing Christmas songs. Around every corner Santas handed out candies from a red sack hauled over their shoulders with a collection box in one hand for donations. They called the project Santas on Streets with the aim of raising funds to donate gifts to children in orphanages or homeless children.

  “Hey,” Nadia said. “We’re gonna buy some pudding before the concert starts. You want one?”

  Ina looked around and saw a stall selling hot beverages, which sounded more up her alley. “No, I’ll get hot chocolate.”

  “Okay. We’ll meet you back here in five.”

  With that, Nadia and Ara raced off. Suddenly alone among such a huge mob of people, Ina’s skin crawled. She sighed and trudged to the stand, putting her mind to imagining the warm cup she’d soon have in her hands.

  But of course none of her plans involving people ever went the way she calculated. This simple plan of obtaining a hot chocolate would be no different. See, Ina didn’t lack Christmas spirit. She had plenty of that. She even decorated her room and sang carols under steaming hot water in the shower. What she lacked was the ability to function in the outside world because there were too many variables. Rules of probability were greatly skewed. Predictions had no bearing when unexpected events were factored in.

  And that was exactly what happened.

  One second she was stepping off the sidewalk onto the asphalt road to cross the street. Next second, she was slipping on wet snow and shrieking. Then, in vain attempt to regain her balance, she grabbed at the air for the closest thing.

  It wasn’t her fault that it happened to be a beard.

  It especially wasn’t her fault that beards weren’t the greatest things to use in aid of regaining footing. But nonetheless it was a beard, which meant that both she and the poor soul she’d unintentionally assaulted went tumbling to the ground in the middle of hundreds of festival-goers.

  And wow, this guy was heavy. His body crushed her legs and her tailbone hurt from landing on it and she was still holding-

_Wait. Is that a..._

  She held her hand up to the sky and sure enough. It was white. It was fluffy. It was _hair_.

  “Oh, my god,” she whispered in absolute horror. “I ripped your beard off.” Which was entirely ridiculous unless- “Oh. My. God. I pulled your skin off.”

  The guy, now trying to push himself off, laughed. “I sure hope not.”

  Ina looked down to see a rather tall person dressed like a Santa clamber off and crouch beside her. And holy crap. He was cute, made cuter by the fact his chin wasn’t a bleeding mess of flesh. Chocolate eyes, adorable nose and jaw line sharp enough to cut diamond.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. British accent. Definitely British accent.

  Still lying on the ground, Ina looked at the thing in her hand. Oh. “I’m fine, thank you.”

  He extended a hand to her. She stared at it for a moment before it registered that this cute British boy she’d just bulldozed over was trying to help her up. She gingerly took his hand and let herself be pulled to her feet. She was still holding his beard so she awkwardly gave it back.

  “I’m really sorry I grabbed your beard. I mean, the Santa beard. Not your beard. You don’t have one.”

  He smiled in amusement. “No, that was probably the highlight of my evening so far.”

  From the direction of the Reid Oval, beams of lights flared in the sky and a voice echoed, announcing the beginning of the evening concert by artists on-campus and off.

  “I have to go,” cute British boy muttered, looking in that direction. He was already backing away as he said, “Maybe I’ll see you around.”

  He waved his beard in the air but by the time Ina had the sense to wave back, he’d disappeared in the crowd, even in the red Santa costume. She was still standing and staring at the spot he was, dumbstruck by the fact this actually happened, when Nadia and Ara came back, puddings in hand.

  “Come on, let’s go, let’s go!” Ara cried, pulling Ina away by the elbow.

  “But my hot chocolate-”

  “The concert’s starting, Leif,” Nadia whined. “You can have some of my pudding. It’s still warm.”

  Once again, Ina found herself being dragged away by the Rizavi sisters. This time she didn’t even resist.

~

  They held this charity concert every year. Any mildly famous musician or band in the state came to perform. Last year, Ina listened to the concert from the comfort of her room, drinking hot cocoa and reading National Geographic while Nadia and Ara went to the concert. Or at least tried before they were kicked out. Nadia always got free VIP passes because her girlfriend happened to be the manager of a campus-famous band called Voltron. Ina had to admit that they were great but she’d always been content listening to the faint sound from across the university.

  This, standing in front of the stage with music blaring into her ears from all directions so loudly that it thumped her chest, wasn’t all that appealing. She did try to enjoy herself, though. She really did. The artists were pretty good. They put great twists to the classic Christmas songs, the new pop songs and originals were alright too.

  About four performances in, Ryan sidled up to them and Ina sighed in relief that there was someone else with her who wasn’t going crazy. He looked at her like he was surprised she actually left her room.

  But it wasn’t until Voltron that the crowd seemed to really get in the mood. Everyone screamed on the top of their lungs as the five members ran up on stage. Ina didn’t know any of them personally but Nadia talked so much about them that it felt like she knew where each of them hid their secret stash of candies.

  The energetic, beanpole guy was Lance McClain, possibly Nadia’s future brother-in-law. Lead vocalist and acoustics. Smaller Asian guy, Keith Kogane, on the electric guitar and apparently backup vocals. Campus queen Allura on extra percussions. Tiny girl in round glasses on the keyboard. Ina wasn’t actually sure if her name was Pidge (short for Pidgette, maybe) or Katie. There should’ve been a big cuddly guy on the bass but now it was Takashi Shirogane, grad student and the literal definition of perfection in all the professors’ books. Usually Shiro was on drums but someone else seemed to have taken up his spot. Tall, lean, possibly dark hair. She couldn’t see properly with all the crazy lights.

  “What happened to Hunk?” Ryan asked.

  Nadia answered, “He promised to help his girlfriend with her shop this year.” 

  Ina also knew about Shay even though she’d never even seen the girl. She was about to ask who the new guy was but realised she wouldn’t actually know anyway so didn’t bother.

  Voltron started playing their own version of ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’. Ina had to admit it was actually better to watch their performance which was made cuter by the fact Lance kept throwing googly eyes at Keith. She also got the distinct feeling that the drummer was looking at her but then again- trick of the light and exhaustion from reaching her human interaction limit were probably to blame.

  The concert went on for forever and a decade. At one point Ina complained so much that Nadia almost let her leave but honestly, Ina wasn’t sure she would’ve anyway. Despite the aching feet and wetness seeping through her boots, it was kind of fun. And maybe she hoped Voltron would play again (they did).

  Slowly people began to disperse as the concert drew to a close. Nadia was dragging everyone backstage, which wasn’t actually much considering the stage was erected in the middle of a football field. ‘Backstage’ was just a roped off section with a bunch of chairs for performers.

  Nadia bee lined for Voltron’s area where she bumped her hip in Veronica who grinned and bumped back.

  “Hey!” Lance drawled when he saw Ryan. “I thought I saw you in the crowd. How’ve you been, man?”

  Now everyone was looking at her and Ryan as he answered a short and concise, “Great.”

  Keith did a complicated fist bump thing with Ryan. (Ina realised then that Ryan, man of very few words, actually had more friends aside from her and Nadia. It wasn’t the most comforting of realisations.) Keith looked at her.

  “Who’s this?” he asked.

  Nadia did the Will Smith pose and announced, “This is the hermit friend.”

  Not ‘my’ hermit friend but ‘THE’ hermit friend. Great to know that she had a title.

  The new member, standing behind the others, piped up with, “Beard girl.”

  That voice. That accent. That _jaw line_. God, no. Ina grimaced. “Oh. It’s you.”

  Except the cute British guy was no longer in the Santa costume. Now he was in a maroon Voltron band jacket and black pants, his dark brown hair fluffy and- Oh no, he was hot. Ina regretted every decision she’d made that evening.

  “Wait,” Nadia said, looking between the two of them. “You know each other.”

  “Yeah, we...” he trailed and settled for, “ran into each other earlier.”

  Nadia fake glared but there was a huge as grin beneath that. “Leif, why didn’t you tell me?”

  Now literally all of their eyes were on her and the discomfort was setting in. She was fine with giving presentations in front of people. That way she could hyper-focus on the topic at hand without caring about who was watching her. But now, there was no escape and she couldn’t just start blurting out random facts about the world’s first ever computer.  

  But thankfully, Shiro seemed to sense her distress and suggested they all go each something before everything ran out. Everyone muttered their agreement and finished packing up their things then wandered off in a mob.

  Ina, not really knowing any of the others, stuck to the back of the group even when Nadia, Ara and Ryan did their best to involve her. And for some godforsaken reasons, the cute British guy also decided to fall in step with her.

  “Your name’s Leif?” he asked.

  “It’s actually Ina. Ina Leifsdottir. Nadia calls me Leif but that’s my dad’s name.”

  “Ina,” he tried out the name and then decided with a smile, “I like it. I’m James Griffin. James is my dad’s name too. And my grandfather’s.”

  “James Griffin the Third?”

  “Fourth.”

  And God knew why but suddenly she was saying, “Hm, posh.” Who in their right minds said that to someone they just met?

  James laughed. “Yeah, people ask me if I’m part of the royal family.”

  “Are you?”

  She was dead serious but James laughed again. “I wish. But no, I’m just from a long line of egoistical James Griffins.”

  At this point Ryan turned around and asked with his eyes if she was okay. She considered the question for a moment before she nodded. Yes, she was okay. James was easy to talk to that there hadn’t been any awkward silences so far. That was always a plus.

  “Are you cold?” James asked, looking her up and down from the beanie all the way to the fur-lined boots.

  “Not right now,” Ina mumbled, because now she was self-conscious about her four layers of sweaters and her body was heating up in embarrassment.

  “Yeah, you do look pretty toasty.”

  That registered as teasing and she blushed even more. “Are you not cold?”

  “No, I’m from England. It’s always cold there. And wet.”

  England sounded downright miserable. Her face must’ve given away her disgust because James smiled, wide and bright. He’s bathed in soft yellows, reds and greens of Christmas lights around them and the sight was so blinding that Ina stared a little longer than she probably should have before she ripped her eyes away.

  “I want hot chocolate,” she announced, mouth dry and animatedly searching for the nearest beverage stand that wasn’t too crowded. This was when she realised they others were nowhere in sight. “Wait. Where is everyone?”

  “They went to Hunk’s stall. We can get hot chocolate and then meet them there. The drink’s on me.”

  In some part of her mind Ina realised that she was alone with a guy she literally just met and he was going to buy her a drink and she probably shouldn’t accept that. But the part that’s swooning over James Griffin slapped a hand over the other’s mouth. _Shhh_ , it whispered. _Free hot chocolate from a cute, gentlemanly guy who didn’t hold grudges for ripping his beard off._

  So Ina, looking like she was just shot by cupid, got hot chocolate from a certain James Griffin all because the universe threw a curveball and cursed her to slip on ice. They didn’t end up going to Hunk’s stall. They sat on a bench, steaming cups in their hands and Ina’s legs crossed beneath her.

  “Do you study here?” she asked, which was surprising because she wasn’t one to start conversations with people she barely knew.

  “Yeah, I’m doing Aerodynamics. That’s how I know Veronica and Shiro. You?”

  “Double major in data science and computer programming.”

  James let out a long breath. “That’s brave.”

  Ina shrugged and blushed again. She blamed the drink this time. “Codes and numbers are easy for me. There’s a set system and predictable outcome for everything.”

  He cocked his head like he was figuring something out. “You’re not a fan of people, are you?”

  “Not really. People are unpredictable.”

  “Life is unpredictable. For example, I got ambushed by a girl wearing layers of sweaters on my way to a performance I was standing in for.”

  “I didn’t ambush you,” Ina muttered around the edge of her cup. “I slipped. I’m sorry about the whole thing.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m glad I made a friend. I’m actually not great with people either. I’m pretty blunt so everyone thinks I’m an ass.”

  How could someone who made her feel totally comfortable be an ass? “Some people just can’t handle the truth, like the fact that you can theoretically launch a dart by sneezing.”

  James blinked. “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wow, that’s pretty cool.”

  Ina smiled. Yeah, she thought that was pretty cool too. The kid who sat next to her in Metlab class didn’t. He went on a rant about how that was stupid and ‘no one can launch a fucking dart by sneezing’. If she wasn’t completely stunned by his response, she would’ve proven it with elegant calculations with her lucky pen that she reserved for the hardest of questions in finals.

  In any case, James believed her and that was enough.   

  Nadia called her to make sure Ina was alright and asked if she should come back for her. But Ina declined (cue a long silence from the other end). For once, she was making an active effort to make friends and socialise on her own accord. It felt like an important accomplishment that she wouldn’t dare hinder the progress by cutting the conversation short just as she was really starting to warm up to someone for the first time in ages.

 So she talked to James for the rest night about the most random things ever like they’d been friends for years. Books, majors, movies, families, Christmas.

  It was strange. She’d never imagined getting along with someone so smoothly. It always took people a few awkward conversations to really warm up to her and vice versa. With James, there was none of that awkwardness.

  It was like that with Nadia and Ryan too, and they became her two best friends. Maybe this Christmas, the universe’s gift to her was another friend and maybe, hopefully, something more.

  Christmas was a time of miracles so who knew? Maybe she’d get another miracle.


End file.
